When former Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan took the job as head of Michigan's Department of Human Services in 2011, she made it clear she would only serve for four years. Her time is up and she's stepping down Jan. 1.

DHS is responsible for serving some of Michigan’s most vulnerable citizens. The agency is in charge of foster care, food assistance for Michigan’s hungry, welfare benefits, and child care licensing, among other things.

The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled a practice by the state's child welfare system is unconstitutional.

Yesterday the State Supreme Court struck down a 12-year-old rule they said violated the constitution because it allowed the state to punish both parents for abuse or neglect of a child for whom only one parent was responsible, even when parents were not living together.

There's one attorney for every 21,000 low-income Michigan citizens. That's according to the Michigan Bar Association. And that lack of representation hits hard for relatives of children in the foster care system. State of Opportunity's Sarah Alvarez has been following the case of Vanessa Moss, a grandmother struggling financially to take care of four children. Faced with their removal from her home, where do people without resources turn for legal representation?